TOMORROW IS YESTERDAY
This episode really is a comedy of errors in many respects. They haphazardly end up on Earth (the odds of which are astronomical, even if they were headed in that general direction), then accidentally crush Capt Christopher’s aircraft, Spock messes up on his family research, then a guard gets beamed up, Kirk gets captured, the whole shenanigans with the “female personality” of the computer and so on.
However, I'm not complaining - it’s delightfully refreshing after last week’s (would should have been) very intense story.
I like the episode openings that don't immediately feature the usual cast -
Conscience Of The King had a good one, but this isn't even in the usual century!
As we join our heroes, Kirk tilts Sulu's chair back upright again. Is nothing secured to the floor?
In between this week and last, the Enterprise put in for a maintenance overhaul at Sygma-14. It will take 3 weeks to fix the computer – does that mean that they were at Sygma-14 for 3 weeks in the first place? The admiralty ain’t going to like that, best get used to the new computer, Kirk old boy!
Incidentally, the presence of the Majel Barrett voice means that Enterprise technology is perfectly capable of simulating less mechanical sounding voices, they just don’t want to!
“...Whiplash propelled us into a timewarp” says Spock nonchalantly, just as he did in
The Naked Time. Clearly, the concept of a timewarp is an accepted fact, if a somewhat rare occurrence.
Kirk and crew really treat the timeline with kid gloves in this episode. Even the slightest difference such as blurry pictures of the Enterprise from a low position is treated as potentially disastrous.
I like Captain Christopher – he’s a strong character, not one to roll over and admit defeat but completely sympathetic at the same time. His relationships with Spock and Kirk are well developed in the short amount of time available.
I assume Kirk & Sulu brushed up on mid-20th Century technology before they beamed down to the base. How many children today would know what a dark room was?
NEW TECH
- A little gizmo that unlocks mechanical door locks within seconds
- The precursors of the equally impractical TNG palm beacons also appear. When will people of the future just strap them to their heads?
I love this episode, but the logistics of the ending are a mess:
- So…“logically”, as you go faster and faster towards a large body such as the sun, you’ll travel backwards in time? Does that happen every time a ship does that? It would be an incredibly useful cheat if so!
I suppose Spock could be simulating what happened in The Naked Time and just never thought to mention it?
- Then they somehow beam Capt Christopher & the guard back into their own earlier selves’ bodies. Setting aside how that is even supposed to work for a moment, the fact that neither retain any memories of their time on board the Enterprise means that those versions of the two men are gone; in essence, they are dead!
- Where does the earlier version of the Enterprise go? Did that get eliminated as well?
- Has Kirk really murdered 432 people in his effort to get the Enterprise home?
Maybe this ending is as sombre as last week’s episode after all
